


this is what happens next.

by arincooper



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Dark Harry, Dark Harry Potter, Death, Everybody Dies, Evil Harry Potter, Insane Harry, Master of Death Harry Potter, Mental Illness, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Personification of Death, Post-Battle of Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 18:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19256503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arincooper/pseuds/arincooper
Summary: After the battle, Harry feels broken. This is the result.Oneshot. Could be a series.





	this is what happens next.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this made me cry! Have fun!  
> I think it's important to say that the Google Doc I wrote this in is called "Edgy Bastard Fanfic" for a reason.

In the days after the war, Harry stagnates.

  
Hogwarts is a ruin. The dead lie in white shrouds in lines among the rubble, awaiting burial. He tries to offer help to the grieving but they shoo him away, saying that he has done enough. It doesn’t feel like enough.

  
When he shuts his eyes, he sees death. It lurks behind his eyelids amid screams and cries of horror. He attempts to shut it out, but it has forged itself a permanent place within his consciousness. He can’t sleep without potions.

  
All the history books mention Harry Potter and his fight against Voldemort. They mention his birth and his victory, but there is never any mention of an after.

  
He haunts the library like a wraith, attempting to find a distraction. He avoids the restricted section like a plague. Magic no longer has the same thrill to it. Everything feels wrong away from the rush of battle, now that his purpose is gone.

  
He wonders what Dumbledore would’ve said. Would he be proud?

  
The end of term feast is a sombre affair. There is no grand speech of cheerful atmosphere. He feels sick after a mouthful, so he settles for water.

  
Ron offers to let Harry and Hermione stay at the Burrow. Harry refuses, saying that he’d prefer to have some time to himself. He doesn’t speak on the journey home. It seems pointless. Everything is pointless.

  
Grimmauld Place is quiet. He doesn’t dare to look in all the rooms, but it still feels like home. It’s been so long since the Order of the Phoenix sat at the table and debated ways to vanquish the dark, lifetimes ago. Kreacher brings him food and water three times a day, but otherwise, nothing happens.

  
Nothing ever happens.

  
He never got back together with Ginny. It seems too late. Always too late.

  
Ron and Hermione get married in April. It’s the happiest they have been since the world fell apart. In May, they are both killed by a group of Death Eaters that evaded capture. More people come to the funeral. Harry says some words, but afterwards he forgets what they were.

  
A year after he lost it, he finds the resurrection stone. He never got to tell his best friends everything, but their ghosts don’t want to speak. They hover out of reach, inaccurate depictions of who they used to be. You should’ve done more, they say with empty eyes.

  
He puts the stone in the same draw as the wand and locks it. Despite the shadows of his friends disappearing, he still feels like he’s being watched.

  
When he leaves his house he does so under the cloak, so nobody asks questions. He doesn’t even look like the same person. There are rings around his eyes and his hair is longer, messier than is was before. His skin is pale from the long hours spent without sunlight. He’s not the same, and it tears him apart.

  
He finds comfort in books. The Black library is not somewhere he would set foot in before, but months of nothing have made him want more. He’s learnt a lot.

  
Some of the books are darker than others, and at first he avoids them. Soon the temptation becomes stifling, and he opens one, just to see. It’s not as bad as he thought it would be. He would never try any of the spells hidden inside - until he did.

  
Dark magic requires emotion, and he’s been bottling it up since the end of the war.

  
Old friends eventually stop responding to his letters, but he never put any effort into his replies anyway. They never said it, but Harry knows that they found him boring as soon as he stopped saving the world.

  
He still sees death.

  
The Ministry releases a list of the dead every week, of those killed by the remaining Death Eaters. They’ve started recruiting again, and travel in packs around the country killing anyone who goes against their values. Sometimes he sees somebody he once knew. Sometimes it seems like they’re getting taken down one by one.

  
Seven years after killing Voldemort he reappears in the public eye. The Ministry promise training and a job, but he refuses. All he wants is to finish what he started.

  
Everything has moved on. Ginny married Neville. Their oldest child is called Harry too. The rest of the Weasleys carry on like they used to, but far less seats at the table are filled. Luna has married a Scamander and they tell their children stories about magical beasts.

  
Most adults want a stable life. Harry is tired.

  
There are interviews - “The Boy Who Lived Seeks Justice” or maybe “Harry Potter; Where Has He Been?”. For the first time in years his face is plastered on the covers of magazines and newspapers. He did not miss this.

  
Headmistress McGonagall invites him for tea one afternoon. They have biscuits. “What are you going to do?” she asks.

  
“Something important.” says Harry, meaning it.

  
Time passes.

  
The lists of dead follow him, growing longer and longer. He feels seventeen again, in the aftermath of the battle, not allowed to help with the bodies and the rubble. He remembers his friends, the ones that were killed and the ones that were forgotten.

  
This time, he will not fear death.

  
He is a being of vengeance for Ron and Hermione. He is brave for his parents. He is clever for all the rest, caring for the fallen. He is judgement to any who cross him.

  
In his mind, he is never not a hero. He is never not doing the right thing.

  
Others call him evil. Twisted. The boy who lived to become a villain. The next dark lord.

  
He knows thousands of curses and has used each one of them. For the first time in years he feels alive, drenched in the blood of his enemies. He’s deranged, murderous. Children named after him go by nicknames or middle names.

  
An inquiry shows that he never was taken to a mind healer. That he had become unstable due to his losses.

  
Grief is not for the departed. Grief is for the living.

  
At the age of thirty five, Harry is given a life sentence in Azkaban. The dementors like the taste of his soul. As he paces the narrow confines of his cell, tears fall from his eyes. Everything is wrong.

  
Ginny is fixated on the news. She doesn’t know what happened. People pass her on the street, and there are whispers. They wonder whether she is a threat, just because she used to be friends with the infamous Harry Potter.

  
Harry’s cell is between a murderer and an arsonist. He makes no effort to speak.

  
McGonagall is shocked by the news. Despite making an effort not to pick favourites, she had thought that he was going to be something great. Not this. Definitely not this.

  
The aurors outside his cell stare at his crazed eyes and are lost for words.

  
Molly Weasley can’t believe her own eyes. This is not Harry Potter. This is not the boy who she loved like a son.

  
This is not what any of them wanted, but it is what they got.

  
He still sees death. It is in his hands, red and violent. It is in his eyes, painted with sorrow. It is in his bones, not yet old. It is in his mind, scarred and ugly. It is in his scar. It is in the broken shards of his wand. It lies tangled in his hair.

  
When it comes, he greets it like an old friend. He is not afraid, for he has not been afraid for many years. He speaks to it, and his voice is hoarse. They have a conversation in the shadows of his prison, and he no longer feels the cold.

  
Harry is asked where he wants to go.

  
(Backwards, forwards, nowhere at all)

  
Perhaps the title ‘Master of Death’ is more of a prophecy than it appears to be.

  
He remembers the cupboard under the stairs, the letter, the train, the castle, the hat, the stone, the snake, the goblet, the army, the war.

  
“Back.” he says.

  
And

  
Death

  
Takes

  
Him

  
Away.

 

 

 

This is what happens next.

**Author's Note:**

> Oof. Hope you enjoyed that.  
> I'm thinking of writing a sequel or a series based upon Dark!Insane!Harry so please offer up your thoughts and opinions in the comments below...


End file.
